


Choices

by mohinikapuahi



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Community: 1_million_words, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 20:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/678461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mohinikapuahi/pseuds/mohinikapuahi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team has had a horrendous week, sometimes it just gets too much....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices

When Steve had blown out of Headquarters on foot just after lunch, it had taken all of Danny’s willpower not to follow him. It had been a miserable week, they’d caught not one but two cases, both of them had ended badly. Sure they’d caught the bottom feeding scumbags, but not without significant collateral damage. Steve had been verbally ripped to shreds by the Governor, which was bad enough, but the bastard had done it in front of the whole team and assorted HPD members. The outcomes had been tragic but there had been nothing that anyone could have done to change it, no matter how superhumanly heroic Steve’s actions were. To his credit Steve had taken the castigation, wearing the blame like a cloak around himself to protect his team. It had surprised no one that his last nerve had snapped soon after their return to headquarters and he’d wordlessly absented himself for the rest of the day.

Danny knew exactly where he would find him. The Silverado was still parked into the car park, so wherever Steve had gone it had been on foot. So he wasn’t worried, well, he was worried, but not about finding Steve. Pulling the Camaro into Steve’s long driveway, he bypassed the house and walked around the side. Sure enough Steve was standing on his sandy strip of beach. Danny stood for a few moments, his posture similar to Steve, just watching his partner. Barefoot, his overshirt tossed over one of the chairs, Steve’s hands were jammed into his pockets, his shoulders ramrod straight and he stared into the sunset, as if the sun could give him the answer to his questions.

Kicking off his shoes at their chairs, Danny walked down into the sand and stood silently beside his partner. He didn’t speak immediately; they didn’t need words the two of them. He just needed Steve to know that he was there for him, no matter what he needed or when. Danny would be here waiting, whether to hold him together, or pick up the pieces, he wasn’t sure.

He waited until the sun dropped behind the horizon, the ocean tinged by the pale orange light that was rapidly slipping into the indigo velvet of tropical nights. Turning his head he looked at Steve’s profile. He’d barely moved since Danny had arrived. His eyes shiny with unshed emotion in a face paler than it should be.

“Are you going to talk to me?” Danny spoke as he watched, Steve flinching almost as if he hadn’t noticed Danny was standing beside him.

“There’s nothing to say Danny.” Steve shrugged minutely, his gaze never leaving the horizon.

“I don’t care what Denning said, Babe, nothing that happened this week is your fault.”

“It’s all my fault. I was in charge of the operation.”

“And the whole thing was fubar before we even caught it.”

“You don’t know that, Babe.” Danny’s words were breathed on a sigh of resignation. Steve hadn’t needed Denning’s asskicking, he had blamed himself as soon as things went south, and the whole team knew exactly how hard Steve wore the team’s failures.

“There had to have been something we could have done differently. She was only eight years old Danny.” Steve’s voice cracked as it caught on the lump of emotion he frantically tried to swallow.

“You don’t think I don’t know that? You don’t think I don’t see her beautiful little face every time I look at my Monkey? That my heart isn’t breaking for her mother? That I know that for the next week I’m going to wake up in a cold sweat imagining that happening to Grace?” Danny started, his hands plucked from his pockets to wave in the air wildly. “The point is Steven, that Max has confirmed that she was dead hours before we even caught the case. Her hopped up out of his head father probably killed her as he was abducting her. There is nothing we could have done differently because it was too late before we even knew he had her.”

“She should still be alive. What good are we if we can’t keep the innocents alive?”

“We can’t win every time, Steve, no matter how good you are.”

“Not acceptable.”

“Steven. Listen to me.” Danny put a hand on Steve’s shoulder pushing lightly to turn Steve to look at him. Instead Steve turned the other way, walking further up the beach away from his partner. “I know it hurts. I know alright, it hurts like a hot poker being driven through your heart but you can’t let it get to you like this. We are going to lose people. You know that you’ve been to war. You’ve seen more fucked up shit than I will ever see. But you let the losses do this to you and you’ve let the bad guys win.”

“It doesn’t matter what we do it will never be enough.”

“No it won’t.” Danny shrugged fatalistically, moving to stand behind his partner and press a soothing hand against his back.

“Then why do we bother?” Steve leaned back into the warmth and strength of Danny’s calming touch.

“Because we’re the good guys.” Danny responded almost glibly.

“Not good enough.” Steve sighed and Danny could hear the tears in his voice.

“No. Not this time. But maybe next time we’ll be able to save the child of the meth head scum bag. Maybe we won’t lose the teenagers with the fucked up Romeo and Juliet Suicide pact. The point is we’ll be there trying, there’ll be hope for them. We can’t save all of them but we can save some. If that’s the best we can do I’ll take it. If I can save one life it’s better than sitting back and watching the world, the island screw itself into the ground right?

Steve turned and pulled Danny into his tight embrace, resting his head on his partner’s shoulder, his cheeks stained by tears for the victims they hadn’t been able to save. 

“You’d never really seen the faces before had you?” Danny asked softly.

Steve shook his head, his grip tightening around Danny’s torso. 

Danny’s lips tilted into a small smile as his own hands caressed Steve’s back gently. 

They were going to be fine.


End file.
